mental illness – Jesus is for the Wounded

It’s not the same thing, Part 2

Published on October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

In Part 1 of this story, I disclosed a horrific scene that has plagued my mind and body for decades. The only way for the incident to have been true and for me to have survived without going completely MAD, is by the grace of repression. It’s a coping mechanism of our mind that we have to deal with severe trauma lest we fall into addiction, self-destructive, catatonia, mental illness, homicidal/suicidal behavior, or worse. Even though we may not “remember” what happened, the mind and body never really forget and for me, the stored memories of a fateful day has been revealed in bits and pieces over a very long period of time. A strong image, smell, sound, or new traumatic event can trigger a chain of events that brings it back and more recently for me that trigger has been convulsive episodes. The episodes revealed the truth.

A waking seizure attack comprises convulsive episodes for me that are not epileptic nor psychogenic. The seizure comes virtually anytime and, less than 1% of the time, a memory has gotten unlocked underneath it before the episode ends. It’s as if my brain freezes and goes back in time accompanied by a feeling of terror so intense that my brain feels like it is on fire; I cannot stop the screaming. There is horrific pain, gasping for air, and thoughts that slow waaaay down. An observer would describe it as a seizure followed by a nearly catatonic state when I cannot move or speak or breathe. Limbs often shake, one violently flapping then the other, then both legs involuntarily move very rapidly together-and-apart like that of a child in an autistic fit of sorts. I am awake; my eyes are closed but eyelids twitch or squeeze as if squinting (in one eye or both). I am always aware of my surroundings although I may or may not be able to speak when it stops. This electrical activity of my brain-on-fire has had the power to unlock images and scenes from my past that fit what I already recall in my history. It’s as if the terrifying emotion that I was unable to express at the time of the incident is finally released to the light of day. It is not fake. The memory always fits a scene that I do recall from my past, much like what happens when you finally locate a missing piece of a puzzle. A puzzle with edges fried by fire, that is. Finally you can see the full image albeit tainted by the horror of what you are now seeing more clearly.

I concluded Part 1 with two methods that my mentally ill father used to try to get me to forget what happened at his home when I was a pre-teen. Years later I would come to understand that he was 1) using methods that he probably had tried on himself to manage the thought disorder of his own paranoid schizophrenia, 2) experimenting with mind control methods popular in the fields of psycho-cybernetics and psychology of the 1970’s, 3) drinking a lot of wine, 4) not hiding what he was doing most of the time (i.e. there were witnesses who have corroborated pieces of every scene that I have recalled), and 5) trying to get me to forget what happened, perhaps knowing the damage that trauma in his own childhood had done to him. I believe that his mental illness was a consequence of ritualistic (i.e. continuous) verbal and physical abuse by his mother/passive father until he found a way out of the home as a young adult by marrying my Mom. But RoseAnne was fleeing her own abusive father/passive mother. Their marriage was doomed shortly after it started as abusive patterns repeated themselves between them, spilling over into the lives of little Julie, Michael, and Robert. Eventually my Dad ran away, came back, then ran away again for twenty-seven years. What a mess.

Sadly when those really bad things happened to me at his home, he wouldn’t know the difference between how to help me and how helping me ended up hurting me even more. To get me to forget a horrific murder scene, the maiming of his pet German shepherd in a satanic ritual, and the sexual abuse by two women ALL DURING THE SAME DAY of a visitation to his home, my Dad tried used a method of instilling intense FEAR. He wanted me to forget what happened by attempting to cover it with other intense emotions, images, and threats. Forget trying to talk about it!!! (I am aware that there are witnesses who were in the house at the time who have either been sworn to secrecy or were under the influence of so many drugs and alcohol that they have some level of amnesia as well. Maybe something will trigger their memories one day? Maybe one of them will try to find me through this blog?) My Dad was wrong. Subjecting me to more fear compounded the torture, the trauma even more. Eventually I remembered the most important parts of the story. I wrote about it to release it’s power over me and highlight the power of our Lord to overcome my dark hell on earth.

I describe one method my dad used to instill fear in Part 1: nearly drowning me in our backyard pool. The damage to my neck has continued for my entire life. Another method he tried was injecting me multiple times with a psychedelic drug that left pock marks on the inner surface of both of my elbows. Perhaps he thought that the altered mental state created by the drug would cover my memories? He was right: I didn’t recall most of it for two decades. The blisters that appeared right afterwards then later the scars raised repeated suspicion from our family doctor, sure that I was shooting up drugs but hey, I was just a kid at the time. I still have the scars to this day albeit distorted by the effects of aging. Another family member disclosed that some people in my dad’s circle of people used hard drugs in addition to satanic rituals such as seances; sadly he won’t tell me anything else, alluding to needing to protect his wife who I believe was also present. The seances were very likely held at a table right in front of the couch to which I retreated during that fateful day at his house. This exposure to the supernatural world opened me up at a tender age to demonic influences of the occult (that would be compounded by teenage curiosities with a Ouija board). The abuse, the occult, the psychedelic drugs, and perhaps even changing body chemistry of puberty created a lock-down in my mind and body that most people would never survive. I know. It took me a year in a healing prayer ministry to start to understand the power of the demonic and how to stand firmly with the power of Jesus Christ. And as I write this, I am the only surviving member of my immediate family, all tainted by various forms of evil known as abuse.

Three More Methods

For most of my life I have had difficulty falling asleep. It used to take me up to 90 minutes to settle down enough to finally drift off to sleep or rather endure the difficult sequencing required to let go. The problem? Intensely fearful thoughts to the level of waking night terrors at times. If I’d ever had a nightmare more than once, my mind would often recall them again and again at random while I was trying to calm my thinking down enough to be able to sleep. Sometimes a scary scene would continue getting worse and worse then other times it would just keep repeating itself like a scene viewed from a broken piece of film flapping in an old theater projector. As I grew older I learned a technique of trying to re-write the dream or images to a happier ending. Sometimes it helped and sometimes it didn’t. Eventually I passed out anyways from mental exhaustion. Most of the abuse that I experienced in my childhood happened either at night or when falling asleep. No surprises here that I would need to work on this problem for most of my adult life: dealing with night terrors and waking nightmares, terrifying dreams overnight, then flashbacks of abuse.

Another problem was the black-and-white flashes of lighted psychedelic designs that spun in my mind’s eye or were thrust near-and-far at quick intervals before stopping. These occurrences happened every single night as I was trying to fall asleep, somewhere between the first and second stages of REM sleep. I thought it was normal. It was as if someone was focusing the beam of a flashlight on a toy pinwheel or a spinning saucer 2 to 3 feet in front of my face. The bedroom would be dark and my eyes closed after lying down to sleep but the lines and designs in my “mind’s eye” were as clear as a pen and ink drawing on bright white watercolor paper. There was no way to stop these images from coming to mind. They happened every single night of my life for decades. Even though I had taken psychology classes in college and worked many years as an Occupational Therapist in the mental health field, it didn’t register to me that this nighttime behavior wasn’t normal until I finally started getting counseling in my 40’s specifically for this type of abuse. Ritual abuse occurs when a person of influence uses a repeated, harmful behavior to control another person for the gain of the abuser, over an extended period of time. It can be spiritual, demonic, or other forms as well. Flashing black-and-white images in front of my face when I was falling asleep is the third method of ritual abuse that my Dad used to try to get me forget, to try to control me and my thought processes. (It’s actually related to a twisted form of psychocybernetics invented by Maxwell Maltz in the 1960s and described here.)

I cannot explain exactly when or why the nighttime “flash-treatments” began. I don’t know if my Dad said anything when he did this or when he eventually stopped them. How many times did it take for it to become almost permanent in my mind? There was enough repetition to cause harm. After I came to faith in Jesus Christ and about a decade of therapy, the images slowed then stopped. I don’t see them anymore when I am trying to fall asleep. Praise the Lord! In examining all of this, I realized that my dad’s use of strange rituals that were frightful to me as a child were not isolated events. In Part 1 I described how my dad tried to help my brother Mike via messages of his voice on a tape recorder that he played on a special speaker under his pillow as my brother was falling asleep. Those messages were intended to help my brother’s self esteem. Decades later Mike would tell me how much they damaged him, that his Dad must have thought so poorly of him that my dad had to repeatedly tell Mike via a cassette tape that he was a “good boy.” Why didn’t my Dad just say it to Mike’s face? Tell Mike that he loved him? Since I do not recall much affirmation from my Dad as the oldest sibling (who actually looked like a member of my dad’s family; Mike did not and this was an important point that my Mom told me many years later), I doubt Mike got any affection at all. But how could he? My father had none to give . . . Such realizations ultimately helped me to forgive my Dad and paradoxically paved the way to remembering more of my past, good and bad.

Perhaps this all sounds too crazy to believe. Maybe for you but not for me. My Dad’s experimentation didn’t end there though and it would be sprinkled in some manner throughout the years that my Dad was still around. One night when my parents were still together, my Dad had taken the crucifix down from the wall in my brothers’ room to make some kind of repair. When he didn’t come back with the cross right away, I snuck down the stairs to see what he was doing. I believe Mike followed sometime thereafter but I am not sure. The lights were on in the stairway but the basement was very dark, which seemed strange to me. The stairwell was placed in the middle of the basement area of our ranch home and my Dad had created two rooms on either side of it: a laundry room on one side and a workshop on the other. There was no door on either room so you could travel from one to the other underneath the stairs between the two rooms. The walls were a white stucco over concrete, the floor was poured concrete, and the entryway into each room was made of brown paneled walls with a light-colored wood trim around the edges. I spent a lot of time in both areas, fascinated by all of the tools in the workroom.

I slowly peeked around the edge of the paneling into the doorway of the darkened room and was frightened by the face of my Dad lit up by candlelight. What the . . .? He had a look of surprise on his face that I had come down there; evidently I was very quiet sneaking down the steps, dressed in my pajamas and socks. I came around to the width of the opening just long enough to see the cross propped up on a wooden table in front of the mirror of our old bathroom vanity (affixed like a cabinet to the side of the wooden staircase). The Jesus figure and front of the wooden cross shined in the glow of the candle held by my Dad. He was looking at the reflection of the cross in the mirror and doing something that I knew was weird and scary and that I shouldn’t be seeing at all. I don’t know if my Dad made his usual “Yaaaaarl” sound to get us out of there and back upstairs or if it was my sheer terror that caused me to turn and escape as fast as I could. Who knows where Mike was in all of this?! The rest is a blank slate in my memory. It was at least a day later before the cross was back on the wall in my brothers’ room. Seeing that nail hole in the wall without the Catholic cross hanging there sure was creepy until then. I don’t recall my Dad or anyone else ever saying anything about it ever again.

The fourth method that my Dad used to get me forget became the seed of agoraphobia that would plague me my entire life. Sure, it’s normal to be afraid of spiders. What is not normal is experiencing a fear so terrifying that you KNOW you will DIE and have physical symptoms that appear to be fatal when faced with anything larger than a tiny bug on a bedroom floor. Then there are the nightmares for days afterward seeing one even in a movie or a TV show. The fear never, ever goes away or gets better with exposure, talking, desensitization techniques, or whatever anyone tries to do to help me get it to change. I know, I have tried. It’s just not that simple especially when the origin for me was the deliberate use of an already fear-mongering creature to scare me so badly that I would forget the trauma somehow associated with it. I am not even sure how the association was made, just that I knew I would DIE if I remembered what happened that fateful day at my Dad’s house; the phobia reinforced the amnesia. Layer it all with demonic oppression where satan himself uses the fear, the memory, the remembering, the telling, the physical symptoms against you with lies and a worsening of all associated types of pain. They call it spiritual attacks. Perhaps the Lord allowed him to inflict me with convulsive episodes all these years? Perhaps it’s now a tool to uncover the truth of what happened so many years ago? To let me know just how bad the scenes were that it would take thousands of profound electrical misfirings of my brain to uncover it? Talk about a lock-down . . .

Maybe you recall the scene in first Home Alone movie where an 8-year-old boy named Kevin McCallister was accidentally left home alone then tried to outsmart a pair of thieves? One of the booby-traps he sets for them includes letting loose his pet tarantula. I cringed in horror as I knew what was about to happen at some point when the spider met its intended victim. One of the bandits screamed in fear as the spider crawled on his face when he was lying face-up on the stairwell inside the home. Granted probably most of us would scream holy terror as well! But we would not go catatonic in an effort to avert death. A true phobia is not a rational fear, not a moment of screaming that resolves thereafter. My Dad put the large spider on my face to get me to forget the trauma of three horrific scenes of terror in a single day. Equally as traumatizing as the huge spider was the image of black beady eyes of that spider staring at me. I really cannot say anymore right now. It’s still quite disturbing to put all of this together here. This realization only came to me recently and I have just begun the work of unpacking it. The effects of using fear to control me has resulted in lifelong behavioral anomalies, irrational fear, supreme difficulty studying pests and insects as a Master Gardener, avoidance behaviors, nightmares, and more. That is what a phobia does to a person. It starts a survival mechanism of the mind then continues despite its harm. And in the end, it did not get me to forget forever what happened, what I witnessed. Eventually I did remember. In the end, it just inflicted even more harm.

A fifth method was hypnosis although I don’t think that it was applied directly to me. All 3 of us kids were in my Dad’s workroom with him one afternoon when I don’t think my Mom was home. She was often at church doing work as President of the Altar Society at St. Cletus Church. I remember my Dad sitting one of my brothers on a metal stool, the one with the red vinyl top on it, and dangling a chain with a pendant on it in front of his face. My Dad instructed him to keep his eye on the pendant as it moved from side to side. My other brother and I were watching intently as my Dad went through some kind of sequence in a slow, low, calm voice. “You’re getting sleepy” or something like that. I don’t recall if either one of them fell asleep or changed posture in any way; I know that I was able to look around the room shortly thereafter, feeling like it didn’t affect me at all. My other brother was next. I didn’t volunteer. I was curious but also just old enough to know that there was something not right about what my Dad was doing with us. I wish I could remember what the goal was, if there were any special instructions my Dad tried to “suggest” under the influence of hypnosis but I do not. I may have asked what it was used for? Funny how a child is curious about what he or she is seeing a parent do even when it is exceedingly harmful and never should have happened. At a gut level, this experience made me resist the offer of hypnosis from every therapist I have had in my life who wanted to “help me” remember the forgotten years of my childhood. No, no, never!

We should never experiment with mind control techniques on another person when we are not trained to do so and I believe rarely even if the person of influence is trained. The Lord will bring back the memories in His own way and in His own time when the person is ready for them. More importantly I can see no reason for even a trained person to use mind control techniques like hypnosis on a child! It doesn’t matter if it worked for someone else. It’s not the same thing to use a method or object or saying or rationale for mind control over someone else especially without the consent of the other person. A child cannot give such consent as he or she cannot understand the potential risks. I also disagree with a parent providing consent for a child to be hypnotized. If what anyone is doing runs the risk of violating another human being’s right of consent at any age then it may construe undo influence and potentially abuse. We must filter our actions as an adult with what is morally good, what is right, what is fair, and what our Lord Jesus Christ instructed in His Word for how we should live; consulting mediums and mind-altering drugs and ritualistic sayings/prayers are taboo! Tapping into the unconscious mind runs the risk of inviting the supernatural world of which satan rules. Satan only seeks to deceive and destroy. Don’t try to get ahead of God! Please do not yield to “whatever works” Gentle Reader!

Stated another way, we must not “experiment” on another human being, especially a child, hoping for a certain outcome when we can easily run the risk of hurting him, her, or even yourself and your relationship if we don’t get it right. How do we know we will get it right? Neural retraining and the like are popular now in the treatment of Non-epileptic seizures and many chronic illnesses these days. If you must use mind-altering methods, please choose degreed and certified professionals with proven track records and decades of success. Further, I contend that a parent must never treat his or her own child even if degreed or certified in a given technique. My Dad was one of the most extreme examples of the damage that can be done when this happens. My Dad inflicted immeasurable harm that damaged me and my brothers. Although mentally ill, he was still responsible for his actions as we all are. Knowing that he was mentally ill, struggling to overcome it, and abused as a child helped me much later to forgive him and begin to heal. If my Dad did not repent and come to faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ, then God’s Word promises that my Dad will punished one day by a righteous God. He said that he came to faith in Jesus and I hope that is true; the Lord’s mercy and grace will cover him. I don’t like to think that my Dad will face eternal damnation; it’s just not for me to worry about as I focus now on what I have learned along the way and even some good memories that came forth with the bad ones. We did get to make our amends of sorts in 2011 and for that I am very glad, at peace. Further, I have come to understand that everything that happened to me was ultimately a consequence of a larger concept called “sin” and of living in a fallen world. This world is laden with evil led by satan himself. My ritual abuser willfully opened himself and even enlisted the power of satan and his minions not knowing that ultimately satan comes to destroy: he will not help you control your mental illness nor the unruly behavior of 3 innocent children! Sadly, my Dad battled mental illness his entire life.

For me it was not the same thing to know what happened to me as it is to become free of the impact it had on my life. The former is exceedingly painful. The latter is freeing. It’s not the same thing decades later to have a seizure disorder of unknown type and 1) have Doctors claim then that it must be psychological, for some kind of personal gain (yeah right, how sick is that?!) vs. 2) the electrical activity of seizures jarring locked-down memories of horrific trauma. Thank the Lord that I did forget such horrific trauma so I could survive, focus as much as I could on living. Years later it was explained to me that I didn’t have a seizure when the abuse occurred so there’s no psychological reason for me to have seizures now. I had flashbacks of really bad things for twenty years before the onset of convulsive episodes eight years ago. Each memory came back to me when the Lord ordained the timing, when I was ready to handle more of the truth. It took time to work though each nasty piece, lay each one at the foot of the Cross, and figure out how to go forth after reclaiming the full picture of a mixed-up, dysfunctional family, a once mixed-up dysfunctional Julie.

I just wish that now that I can see how the Lord used the seizures for some good in reclaiming my past that they would stop already! I still deal with numerous abnormal lab tests and scans that all could be contributing to the convulsive episodes and tics, confirming an organic cause. Years of treatments have alleviated, changed the pattern of, reduced, and some days even stopped episodes. The latest contributing factor is Autonomic Dysfunction. This diagnosis confirms why vagus nerve stimulation techniques have helped me so much, particularly those of the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s no surprise that it is the opposite, sympathetic nervous system that gets revved up when abuse happens and, for example, would have contributed to decades of difficulty falling asleep at night. My mind and body are more calm now in general than ever before. So I guess I can say that these nine years of battling serious illness has become a serendipitous opportunity to free my life from the various things that trauma and the serious illness itself did to me. I have a long rap sheet of medical problems but my spirit is lighter now than ever before. Good things have happened! This is true even though I still have tics or episodes virtually every day. It’s just taking a long time to find the CURE for whatever is their CAUSE. Lord willing, one day I will be healed!

In the book of Genesis, Joseph professes to his brothers that sold him into slavery the following:

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Genesis 50:20

Joseph’s brothers were jealous of a dream he had shared with them that one day they would serve him even though he was the youngest member of the family at the time. They faked his death! In the end Joseph survived, endured tremendous trials and years later, rose to fame in Egypt as second in command of the nation that saved the lives of many peoples because of his inspired leadership. When his estranged family came calling for help, Joseph ended up saving their lives as well in addition to reconciling with them. All was restored including his relationship with his beloved father who feared he would die if he lost another son. He didn’t. He gained a son he thought was once lost.

My Dad did very bad things at least partially knowingly what he was doing, akin to those of Joseph’s brothers. Then as the Lord showed me the abuse that my dad had suffered, our familial patterns of alcoholism and mental illness, and brought me to a saving relationship with His son, Jesus Christ, I was able to move from hurt and anger to forgiveness. That forgiveness had many layers as more truth came into the light and as I got to see him after TWENTY SEVEN years of estrangement from our family. I still didn’t know back in 2011 what I know now. The serious illness that developed into daily convulsive episodes came at the end of the year 2011 and after my dad had passed away. I cannot go back to my father and ask him about what has been opened up to me most recently. I simply have to trust the Lord’s timing in how all of this came together, put any pain at His Cross and leave it there.

Recently an expert instructed me how the Lord divinely sequences every detail in our lives. My understanding of this sequencing has not been the same in the past as it is now. I may weep in the moment but it doesn’t last very long. I try as best I can to live around this scourge, my thorn in the flesh perhaps. It is my firm belief that our God endorses and redeems everything we endure in this life as we prepare, we mature for our eternity with Him. Nothing that happens in our lives is wasted: not the good, not the bad, not the ugly. Nothing is hidden from our Heavenly Father either. He sees and He grieves for our suffering. He rejoices in our victories! I know that He will not only make all things right and new one day but also bring justice and reward for the faithful. The truth will come into the light. Believe it Gentle Reader! I do. JJ

The Gentle Giant

Published on May 29, 2017June 2, 2017 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

Standing over 6 feet tall, the man could have been mistaken for the childhood Green Giant hero of the Television Age. He let his hair grow long, beard get kind of scruffy, and middle section pudge just enough to make his bear hug just right. The children squealed when he growled and chased them back up the basement stairs when he had enough of their antics and needed to get back to work in that mysterious and yet wonderful business within those concrete walls. More on that story another time.

The man was as conflicted as any could be in this life. I’ll call him the Gentle Giant or GG for short. My knowledge of him is pieced together from some vague memories, his hand-written journal, a few newspaper clippings, internet searches, and the stories from family members. Call it a great tragedy or perhaps work of satire as he never reached his full potential in this world. Lord knows, he tried.

GG grew up in the blue collar suburbs of Detroit, Michigan as the son of an auto mechanic and never-quite-satisfied mother. His dad let his mother rule the household including harsh discipline for the boys of the family. Beatings, torture, destruction of their few prized possessions, restriction of food, verbal abuse, and lying about it all to suspicious outsiders comprised his private hell. She destroyed his model airplanes, locked him in the closet, and made him sit at the meal table all day and all night as abusive punishment for just being alive. The next generation (grandchildren) would be treated differently as would the girly middle child; the oldest brother would turn gay and befriend his mother and father in a strange twist of survival-perhaps-denial until he died of AIDS in his forties. The baby of the family barely made it out alive when the older siblings were no longer around to protect him. GG, the second oldest of the four children, had finally found his way to break free.

GG made a plan to marry the first woman who would accept his hand in marriage. It took a few years after high school to find a suitable mate who was willing to marry him, perhaps in an attempt to escape her own abusive and alcoholic father. They quickly had 3 children and a relationship burdened by his physical abuse of the mother. The oldest took an overdose of her mother’s thyroid medication requiring having her stomach pumped at only 3 years old; the middle child developed a life-long inferiority complex from being told by his dad that he resembled his mother’s family more than his. And this was only the beginning of things that went wrong in that household. By the time the five of them had moved from the trailer park to their new home, GG was having periodic psychiatric breakdowns. Experts have determined later that these were likely the psychotic breaks of paranoid schizophrenia.

GG struggled with the adult responsibilities of work, raising a family, relating to his wife, and managing the internal chaos of his mental illness. He came into the realities of adulthood with too much brokenness to overcome; he was a brilliant inventor and draftsman yet could not control his own mind to ever find true happiness or success. GG defied the counselling offered and declined the psychiatric medication newly developed that could help control his thought disorder. He took an extended leave of absence from work and, instead of getting well, used the time to build a business in the unfinished basement of their home. It became wildly successful in the hobby world of the 1960’s. How his employer never found out is another mystery.

Unfortunately the same ingenuity that brought him initial success 1) as a non-degreed draftsman for a major automaker and 2) in the home business, did not work when he applied it to his mental illness. He experimented in psycho-cybernetics, hand writing analysis, the occult, various activities of the hippie crowd, drinking alcohol, and more. Eventually he left town on his motorcycle with some blonde chick for California with all the profits from the business . . . The children saw his father come and go in a myriad of painful and confusing scenes over the next few years until finally their parents divorced. Their dad lived in another suburb across town thereafter but the holiday visits and false hopes for things to be right never fully materialized. Eventually GG left town for good and had no direct contact with his family for the next 27 years.

GG sent threatening letters to his mother for several decades, perhaps wrestling with her years of abusing him and what to do with it. Sadly he hurt his own children as well in other ways. Over the years, the oldest daughter had witnessed satanic rituals, was abused by some women in the course of some psychedelic mayhem at his house across town during a visitation weekend, and was then tortured herself by GG in an attempt to help her “forget” what had happened to her. The middle child witnessed his father’s domestic abuse of his mother and personal self-degradation as his father used mind control techniques on him in a misguided attempt to try and help his son. The taped messages he recorded ended up having an opposite effect! And the spirited youngest boy got as far as he could in life then, as a young adult, tried to find his dad who had left the family when he was barely past kindergarten. His dad’s letter of rejection was found by loved ones in his wallet after the young man died of alcoholism. The surviving family grieved deeply.

GG’s experimentation with mind control techniques inadvertently opened himself up to the demonic realm. The darkness in his eyes reflected this in particularly frightening scenes recounted by his children. Knowing this, understanding his abusive upbringing and resulting mental illness then their own coming to faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ, has helped the two surviving siblings forgive their father. They have found peace with their past and with their dad. The man was simply lost. He had no idea the dark world he had incited nor the abuse he ended up carrying from one generation to the next. It took the daughter in particular, many decades to understand this and break free from the trauma and demonic influences. How that happened is yet another story. The miracle of overcoming such hell gives testimony to the incredible power of the gospel through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Thirty years after the oldest sibling last saw her father and two months before he died, she got to meet with him at his retirement/trailer park in Florida. They had slowly developed a new relationship by phone before he eventually agreed to a visit in person. The Gentle Giant was frail yet charmingly engaging. He told her tender stories of her days as a little girl and of how proud he was of her. He told her that he loved her and by the time of their visit had shared how he had to leave their family to protect them from further harm. More psychological breakdowns had occurred over the years. His isolation from family and most of society became part of how he managed his illness in addition to long sabbaticals from work. He jointly held over 27 patents with a major manufacturer of automotive parts and would say that was why they “put up with him” and his leaves of absence. The woman would see how creative her father was in crafting his life with the fragments he had been given . . . how incredibly her Heavenly Father would sustain her own life until those sweet moments of reconcilliation with her dad could bring closure, bring healing, bring some sweetness too.

Our earthly fathers have incredible importance in how we turn out in our lives. They are the first authority figures in our lives who initially influence how we relate to our heavenly Father who is exceedingly greater and perfect; ways that our earthly father can never be. A loving relationship with both are critical for grounding us in this life on earth. Even in the absence of a good dad the yearning of our hearts can lead us to the One Who will never leave us, never forsake us. I do pray that in this story you will see how the “seeking” of one young girl as she became one older woman led her to overcome the failings of her father by filling those empty and hurting places with the unfailing love of Jesus Christ. Graciously she did get to feel at last, the love of her real father before he died. Not everyone will have this kind of opportunity; others will experience it their entire lives. Regardless, we all can be whole no matter what darkness has fallen on our journey through this life.

I understand these experiences very well nurtured with truth from the Words of our Lord in His scripture and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Further, the Gentle Giant in each of us can be transformed from sorrow to joy if we but believe in His holy name, Jesus Christ. Healing and fullness of life will follow us all of our days into eternity. I love that. Oh Heavenly Father, I thank you for this story and for Your story of redemption too. May you speak to the heart of the Gentle Reader who finds these words this day, filling him or her with your goodness. Bring them into the best of relationships found only with You. Bring hope beyond what we all can see. For your glory I pray in Jesus’ name I pray, amen. JJ

Known in the Gates: Part 2, The Inside Story

Published on September 19, 2015September 19, 2015 by Jesus is for the Wounded4 Comments

One of the movies that has really resonated deeply with me is, The Breakfast Club. Please see my previous post for the catchy theme song that underscored the film and one of the most poignant scenes that is also pertinent to Part 2 of this 3-part blog.

In Part 1, I described the isolation that I have felt when enduring a serious illness and how the Lord still gets me through the toughest of days. His Word is my greatest comfort; the leading of the Holy Spirit and His presence are my greatest companions. I ended with a question,

But how well does he really know me?

Sure, my Lord crafted me before I was born and set forth all that I would be, all that I would endure and accomplish. His Words in Psalm 139 declare that He knows my “innermost being.” Does this include the longing of my heart as well? If it does, why has He allowed me to become so dreadfully isolated?

Maybe someday I will get to see why so many family and friends have chosen to “walk on by” me as it says in the theme song of The Breakfast Club. Have I not been a good friend? Maybe I was not. I remember about two years into this ordeal someone contacted me and asked me about getting together for coffee. I replied “yes” and then I never heard from her again. My spirits had soared then crashed and burned. For believers in Jesus Christ, the answer to the “why” question is usually left for eternity. We simply may never know “why” this side of heaven.

Those of you not living in isolation may not have any idea how much Satan uses this experience to tear a person down. He can prey upon all of our negative emotions and be allowed to create havoc in our lives. (Yes, ultimately God is still in charge!) Yet I know that it’s really not about resisting Satan or about losing the people in my life. I resist the devil and his demons with the sword of the spirit: the Word of God as described in Ephesians 6:10-17. People come and go in our lives and that is the normal ebb and flow of life. It really is about my response to the taunting, the loss of these relationships.

My challenge has been particularly great due to the effect that this chronic illness has had on my brain. Responding to Satan’s lies and the loss of relationships has been affected by the change in brain chemistry that came with chronic illness. My ability claim victory in the name of Jesus Christ and fully embody the companionship of my Lord have been affected. Satan’s lies have been magnified. My social skills have eroded. My ability to think clearly has been altered. And I struggled to override these skill deficits but could not, even if I tried. Allow me to explain.

Only recently did we discover that excessive neurotransmitters called catecholamines (epinephrine, norephinephrine, and dopamine) are likely contributing to my mood changes, thinking and communication skills in addition to possibly causing the convulsive episodes. This is happening due to the expression or “turning on” of polymorphisms (SNPs) or breaks in several enzymes that help form my DNA code. The DNA code is the instruction manual or blueprint from which the body functions. Everyone has a unique combination of broken SNPs that get turned on by illness or significant stressors in the environment (such as exposure to mold). For me the factors included everything that I have written about in this blog: biotoxin illness/hepatitis, latent Lyme disease, Candida toxicity, mold illness, infected root-canaled teeth, and mercury toxicity. That’s a lot of stressors! These illness and environmental challenges became a trigger for disaster. I even have the data to prove it, all of it!

methylation cycle, Dr. Amy Yasko, SNPs, Lyme disease, mold illness, mitochondrial, mito disease, methylation, B6 deficiency, CIRS, mold illness, — One version of a methylation cycle from http://ihateticks.me/2014/10/06/methylation-for-dummies/

For some people this process manifests as a Mitochondrial Disease or a disruption in the methylation cycle inside the nucleus of the cells of our bodies. My thought life was affected. My mood was affected too. I had waking and nightly nightmares not based in any reality past or present. Those were internal things that my beloved husband, Steve, and the healthcare community could not see very often. Several healthcare practitioners labeled me as having a mental illness of sorts, often without even completing a mental status exam or workup! Gratefully, Steve believed me. They all saw the wretched convulsive episodes that have plagued me for hours every day for 3 1/2 years. And Satan was allowed to enter into the whole dynamic with lies and attacks that I will definitely write about at another time. Absolute mental and physical wretchedness.

But now the gig is up! Two days ago I woke up from a lovely nap after starting to treat this condition. I had my first 16 hours seizure-free! It’s as if someone turned on the lights in my brain! Not only do I have a formula for correcting the brain-part of the process but the prayers of deliverance against the spiritual warfare are taking hold. The cascade of negative mental, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual suffering is beginning to turn around. Lord willing, I am going to get well!

My Jesus knows all about every aspect of what I have described here. He also knows the desires of my heart. How do I know this? My prayers long before this illness began was to become whole. I had been broken by the consequences of a hard life: events out of my control. Many times during trauma the Holy Spirit would bring encouraging scripture to me that kept me moving forward. Yeah, finding hope and finding myself has come through horrible, ongoing isolation and trauma. I have worked hard to recover from so much suffering in my heart, my mind, my body. Each step of the way has been both painful and meaningful. Yet I tell you, Gentle Reader that nothing has been wasted! I have learned to trust the process in EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE under the protection of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And now the desires of my heart are being realized. Cool beans.

So how does one rebirth the desires of one’s heart?

To be continued in Part 3 . . .

The Star

Published on September 5, 2015September 6, 2015 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

The Star of Palmer Lake is the claim to fame of this small town in Colorado by the same name. Built on the side of Sundance Mountain in 1934 and rebuilt in 1976, this 500-foot star shines above the city in December and on special occasions every year. I got to see this local wonder in the year 2003.

Robert had a gentle spirit as a kid. He talked less than his older brother and sister yet they often knew what he was thinking based upon the look on his face. A stern look that made his face turn as red as a stuffed sausage meant that this little kiddo needed to get to the bathroom right quick!

Perhaps Rob was more sensitive than they realized: the kind of kid who took in the good and the bad without saying much while growing up in a single-parent home. Rob looked like his dad which may have given him some slight favor . . . or at least that is what his older brother, Mike and their mom would say. But Rob was too young to really get to know his dad before he divorced his mom then eventually became estranged from the family altogether. How did Robert Matthew Lech get to be so mechanically inclined anyways? Decades later it became very clear that the instruction manual for the Motor City Gear Head that Rob became was in his DNA as well as from those years as a young child when his dad was still around tinkering with this and that in the basement workshop. Just like his Dad, Rob could fix just about anything!

There’s one thing, however, that he could not fix. Rob could not change the fact that his dad left without a trace until many years later. All of the kids would be grown up by the time they learned that “Ted” was living in Florida. The older sister had moved to Chicagoland and the older brother had returned from the Navy. Rob had completed an aviation mechanic certification course with his buddy Karl, then never took the test to actually become certified. Rob drifted a bit then became the Grease Monkey who could answer most any question when you dropped by to see him at the local NAPA auto parts store near Palmer Lake. He would often help his customers fix their cars as well, no charge. Rob had many friends for sure. Many of them joined him at the bar of the bowling alley in the evening, much like the camaraderie of the 1980’s television show, Cheers.

Rob reached out to his Dad some time after receiving his Dad’s address from his mom. It might have been when the family received notice of his Dad’s brother’s passing that they all saw Ted’s address in Uncle Fred’s legal paperwork. Someone had found Ted! Ted’s sister, Lori, went to visit and Ted reportedly shunned her. But for some reason Rob needed to try to reach out to him anyways. Something inside of him still needed to know his father, the one he had come to be like. These things would be revealed many years later, of course. No one got to know Ted just then. Ted responded to the letter that Rob finally sent to his Dad, telling Rob not to contact him again. Ted said that he had a mental illness and he had found a way to live with it which included estrangement from his family and everything in his past. Ted slipped away into anonymity once again. So very sad, really.

Rob was devastated. Rob had another close friend, Dewey, who had passed away which was doubly devastating for this tender-hearted young man. Rob never seemed to overcome the loss of these two important men in his life. His drinking increased and his life crumbled. Before he died he had started to ask questions about God and may have even attended a local church to find some peace. Cans of food from a local food bank were found in his disheveled mobile home along with the slot cars from racing with his dad and brother at local tracks as a boy. Ted Lech, aka “Mr. Motor” was a champion slot car racer and design engineer behind Dyna-Rewind: the fastest motors in the cars on the tracks in the 1960’s. Mike and Rob’s best times were shagging cars during competitions, especially those where their dad smoked all the other race cars every Thursday night!

Dyna-Rewind, Dyna Rewind, Ted Lech, Mr. Motor, slot car racing — Dad’s Slot Car

I found the letter from our Dad in Rob’s wallet when my mom, Mike and I got into town after Rob had died. I was devastated. I, too, carried big hurts from our Dad leaving us as children and so did Michael. We needed our Dad and he could not be there. I grieved the pain that my little brother must have carried to his grave. I loved Robbie so much! Then I found a picture in his wallet, the only one he carried with him every day. It was a picture of me. Oh dear. My brother loved me too! Sigh.

I am not quite sure why this memory is so tender for me right now. I am not quite sure why it still hurts so very much. I am not quite sure my little brother Rob knew how much I really loved him. Oh Rob, how I wish you were still here! I wish you could meet my really cool husband Steve and talk with him about cars and motors and carburetors and hemi engines and more! I sure miss you Raaaaaabeeee!

It is quite possible that Steve and I will do some travelling West this Fall. Lord willing, one of our destinations will be New Mexico and potential places north of there for us to live where the climate is dryer. We just may have to visit Palmer Lake, Colorado too.

Rob’s ashes were dispersed at the base of one of the stars on the side of the Palmer Lake Star on Sundance Mountain in the late summer of 2003. Mike and I climbed up the steep slope, hanging onto brambles, posts, and the cables that comprise the outline of the star while our mom waited and watched from the road below. Two of Rob’s friends from the bowling alley lead the way for us while we huffed and puffed fighting altitude sickness to complete our mission to place Rob at rest. His remains are part of the mountain that he called home: the second light fixture from the upper right point of the 5-pointed star. It’s also right next to the resting place of his friend and neighbor, Dewey. Kind of poetic in a way . . .

I do hope that somehow Rob made peace with his past through the tender love of our Heavenly Father before he passed away. I hope that I will see my little brother and his lanky frame, cute smile, and soft brown eyes when I reach the presence of the Lord someday. Hey Robbie, you will always be a shining star in my memories, my heart.